The Missing Measure of Loneliness: A Case for Including Neededness in Loneliness Scales

Prominent tools used to measure loneliness such as the UCLA Scale and DJGS include no items related to being needed, i.e., neededness. More recent scales such as the DLS and SELSA do include items on neededness, but only within their romantic loneliness subscales. This paper proposes that new iterations of loneliness scales should include in all subscales two items on neededness: (a) whether a person feels important to someone else and (b) whether that person has good ways to serve others’ well-being. The paper surveys cognate studies that do not rely on loneliness scales but establish a link between neededness and feelings of social connection. It then highlights ways in which neededness items would improve the ability of loneliness scales to specify the risk profile, to delineate variations in the emotional tone and quality of loneliness, and to propose suitable interventions. The paper outlines a theoretical argument—drawing on moral philosophy—that prosociality and being needed are non-contingent, morally urgent human needs, postulating that the protective benefits of neededness vary according to at least four factors: the significance, persistence, non-instrumentality, and non-fungibility of the ways in which a person is needed. Finally, the paper considers implications for the design of appropriate remedies for loneliness.

Identifying the polarity of a text given the emotion of its author

The rise of digital communication systems provides an almost infinite source of information that can be useful to feed classification algorithms, so it makes use of an already categorized collection of opinions of the social network Twitter for the formation and generation of a model of classification of short texts; which aims to categorize the emotional tone found in an author’s Spanish-language digital text. In addition, linguistic, lexicographic and opinion mining computational tools are used to implement a series of methods that allow to automatically finding coincidences or orientations that allow determining the polarity of sentences and categorize them as positive, negative or neutral considering their lemmas. The results obtained from the analysis of emotions and polarity of this project, on the test phrases allow to observe a direct relationship between the categorized emotional tone and it is positive, negative or neutral classification, which allows to provide additional information to know the intention that the author had when he created the sentence. Determining these characteristics can be useful as a consistent information objective that can be leveraged by sectors where the prevalence of a product or service depends on user opinion, product rating or turns with satisfaction metrics.

Sound-meaning relations in Japanese Tanka

This study aimed to test sound-meaning relations in Japanese poetry. To this end, participants assessed the sentiments expressed in a random selection of Tanka (a specific form of Japanese poetry) on six bipolar scales comprising Evaluation (emotional valence), Potency (dominance), and Activity (arousal). The selected Tanka differed with regard to their average formant-dispersion (i.e., the distance between the first and second formant). Corroborating results of a previous study that tested the relation between formant dispersion and emotional tone in German poetry, results suggest that poems with an extremely low average formant dispersion have a significantly higher likelihood of expressing dominance and activity than poems with an extremely high formant dispersion. No significant differences regarding the Evaluation dimension were found.

Media Agenda Against Bernie Sanders? Examining the Emotional Tone of US Political News Articles

The emotional tone of news articles (N = 120) on Democratic Party primary candidates was examined to determine if the media has bias towards Bernie Sanders. Using the Dictionary of Affect (Whissell, 2009), article words (N = 115,569) in the first 60 days of 2020 were measured for their pleasantness, activation, and imagery by candidate - Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Mike Bloomberg. Significant differences between Bernie Sanders and the other candidates were found for article pleasantness (p = .000), article imagery (p = 0.003) and headline activation (p = 0.23). Articles written on Bernie Sanders were less pleasant and more active in tone, as well as being more abstract (low in imagery). <br><br>

Media Agenda Against Bernie Sanders? Examining the Emotional Tone of US Political News Articles

The emotional tone of news articles (N = 120) on Democratic Party primary candidates was examined to determine if the media has bias towards Bernie Sanders. Using the Dictionary of Affect (Whissell, 2009), article words (N = 115,569) in the first 60 days of 2020 were measured for their pleasantness, activation, and imagery by candidate - Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Mike Bloomberg. Significant differences between Bernie Sanders and the other candidates were found for article pleasantness (p = .000), article imagery (p = 0.003) and headline activation (p = 0.23). Articles written on Bernie Sanders were less pleasant and more active in tone, as well as being more abstract (low in imagery). <br><br>

Will I Feel This in my Dreams? Examining Temporal Associations between Daytime and Dream Affect

Despite the theory that dreams function to process emotions, few studies have examined how emotional experiences during daytime (“daytime affect”) are associated with the emotional tone of dreams (“dream affect”) that night, and vice versa. This study examined bidirectional associations between dream affect and daytime positive and negative affect. Participants were 84 nurses who completed two weeks of ecological momentary assessments. If participants remembered the previous night’s dreams (nparticipants=68; ndays=391), they reported the dream’s emotional tone upon waking (‘0’=very negative to ‘100’=very positive). Participants also responded to the Positive and Negative Affect Scale three times/day. Multilevel modeling simultaneously tested two temporal directions (daytime affect→dream affect, dream affect→daytime affect) at the within- and between-person levels. After adjusting for socio-demographic and work characteristics, at the within-person level, dream affect was more positive than usual on nights following more positive daytime affect (B=0.25, p=.003). In the other temporal direction, dream affect was not associated with the following day’s positive affect. At the between-person level, nurses who reported more positive dream affect also reported more positive daytime affect (B=0.24, p=.025). No associations emerged with negative affect. Findings suggest that daytime affect is associated with the emotional tone of that night’s dreams, but only in the context of positive affect. Importantly, negative affect was relatively low in this sample, so different patterns may emerge for people more prone to negative affect. Overall, these novel findings support the theory that dreams serve to process emotions, providing insight into the mystery of the function of dreams.

Pumping Up the Base: Deployment of Strong Emotion and Simple Language in Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speeches

Background and Method: This research examines the nomination acceptance speeches of US presidential candidates from Republican and Democratic parties in the post-WWII mass communication era (1948–2020, 38 speeches). Variables studied are the emotional tone of the speeches, their abstractness, their Grade Level, their employment of personal pronouns and their mentions of “America”. Speeches were scored with the Dictionary of Affect in Language (a sentiment analysis tool).Predictions: On the basis of functionalist theories of political discourse, it was predicted that the speeches would have a pleasant and active or celebratory emotional tone. Based on related research that focused on the effects of mass distribution on presidential communications, it was predicted that the speeches would increase in pleasantness, arousal and linguistic simplicity across years.Results: As predicted, speeches were pleasant and active in tone. Across years, speeches became significantly more arousing, less abstract, simpler, and longer. When individual speeches were divided into five equal portions, a strong significant quadratic trend was observed for pleasantness, which started high at the beginning of a speech, fell in the center, and rose again at the end.Conclusions: Presidential nomination acceptance speeches are emotionally pleasant and active and linguistically simple (Grade 8 level). Between 1948 and 2020, they remained pleasant, and became more active and simpler. In service of their aim to “pump up the base” individual speeches began on a pleasant, nationalistic and personal note, encompassed duller and more impersonal material in their centers, and became positive again at the end.

EMOTIONAL STATE OF TEACHERS OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS WITH DIFFERENT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

In the modern conditions of reforming the domestic education system, higher and higher requirements are being imposed not only on the professional knowledge, skills and abilities of teachers, but also on the level of their psychological well-being and the ability to manage their emotions. The article presents the results of an empirical study of the features of the emotional states of teachers of preschool educational institutions with different work experience. Based on the calculations of statistically significant differences using the Kraskel-Wallis H-test coefficient, it is concluded that the emotional states of teachers with different experience differ in the severity of the degree of fatigue, emotional tone, tension and stress. According to the authors of the article, psycho-pedagogical techniques aimed at optimizing emotional states of teachers should be based on four components: organic, emotional, semantic and behavioral.

THE LOST ‘BEAD’ OF “THE WITHERED LEAVES”

The paper deals with the poem by Ivan Franko “My soul! The soul of my soul!”, which wasn’t published during the poet’s lifetime. As one of the poems from Franko’s poetic cycle “The First Bunch” it might have been included in the forthcoming collection “The Withered Leaves”. That’s why the general context of this collection is relevant. The researcher reviews the genre and creative history of the poem and gives attention to its psychobiographical context. The comparison of the published text with the autograph revealed a discrepancy that modifies interpretation. The basis of this poetic reflection is the poet’s intimate feelings for Celina Żurowska (married name Zygmuntowska), so the paper focuses on this Polish woman, in particular her attitude to the poet and her influence on his work. The research focus also includes other works of the writer, which somehow relate to Celina. Her pride, stubbornness, and sometimes even contempt caused pain in the poet’s soul, which gave rise to poetic masterpieces. The memories of Franko’s contemporaries, as well as the ones of Celina herself, help to interpret the poem. The researcher analyzed the work in terms of its structure, poetic composition, emotional tone, and iconosphere. The images of the pearl (shell) and the soul, which are the central symbols of this work, show semantic similarity. The pearl is a symbol of love that grows and becomes stronger due to patience, and at the same time, it is a metaphor for the soul. The poetic language and versification have been examined as well.

PECULIARITIES OF REPRODUCTION OF EMOTIONAL SPEECH OF THE CHARACTER IN THE NOVEL «EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE» BY J.S. FOYER

The paper deals with the study of the emotional speech of the character and the emotiveness of the novel "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by J. S. Foyer. Relying on the anthropocentric paradigm, linguistic-stylistic and linguopoetic methods of analysis, linguostylistic means of emotiveness have been analyzed and the main emothemes of the novel have been determined. The whole range of emotions of the main character of the novel under study is expressed in a number of emothemes: shame, anger, embarrassment, panic, anger, aggression, guilt, sadness, disappointment, happiness, relief, joy, comfort. It is shown that translation of emotional speech entails the careful selection of appropriate lexical-semantic, syntactic and stylistic means for adequate reproduction of emotionally marked micro and macro contexts. With the help of descriptive and comparative translation methods, the peculiarities of reproducing the emotiveness of the novel in the Ukrainian translation were revealed. The task of the translator of the emotionally marked speech of the character is to adequately reproduce the thoughts and emotions of the characters in order to evoke in the reader of the translation the same empathy as in the reader of the original. The translator of the novel under study exploits grammatical transformations, decompression, various lexical and semantic changes to adequately reproduce the emotional speech of the main character in J.S. Foyer's novel "Extremely Loud and Incredibly close" in the Ukrainian translation. The study also revealed sporadic cases of non-preservation of emotional connotation and alteration of stylistic mode, which led to semantic-emotional losses. It is concluded that the Ukrainian translation in most cases adequately preserves the emotional tone of the story, and the translation of key repetitions of adverbial intensifiers harmoniously correlates with the title of the novel and sets the expressiveemotional leitmotif of the whole novel.